22 Link Street
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 at 2:41PM VF Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt & Goldie, on his 22 Jump Street experience
Digital Spy Mark Ruffalo talks the future of the Hulk. Solo movie, Avengers, so on. (BTW and unrelated: did you see Mark Ruffalo riding a unicycle on Graham Norton?)
MNPP wonders wtf Jude Law is wearing
/Film "40 things I learned on the set of Transformers: Age of Extinction"
Film Doctor has 10 notes on 22 Jump Street
Gothamist recommends 5 drive-in movie theaters near NYC. Holy hell. I didn't realize any were left nearby. I am so going. If uh... well, I don't have a car because I live in NYC. Never mind.
Pajiba an open letter to a kid at the theater watching How To Train Your Dragon 2 (spoiler heavy)
Empire whoops. Just days after that awful teaser, Paddington has lost his voice as Colin Firth exits
The Blot Michael Musto names his 10 greatest female movie stars of all time with the most recent addition being Cate Blanchett. A couple of strange choices. Of note: His three way tie (Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland -I can't see what connects them) features three indisputables but that makes it a top 12
WTF?ness
Hollywood.com posted a list of 20 remakes that prove "original isn't always better" -- is it a prank that The Stepford Wives (2004) begins the otherwise kinda okay no wait kind of respectable but random no wait insane list?
A Forever Must Read
"How to Deal With Criticism" - this piece from The Toast made me laugh so so much - the cave story is just. gah! -- and was also so inspiring. I've done some of these self-sabotage things. Listen, nobody is ever going to love everything you do. But you gotta do you. Chin up. Back to work.
Reader Comments (10)
That list of top female stars does contain some odd choices. Much as I love Jessica Lange and she was a great star during her heyday her big screen stardom was not enduring. Cate Blanchett is amazing too but is she even seen as a "Movie Star"? A fantastically respected actress yes but a star that puts butts in the seats reliably, not as much.
Plus any list of greatest female movie stars that doesn't include Joan Crawford, the ultimate movie star, Barbara Stanwyck, the woman who could do anything, and Jean Harlow, who created the blonde bombshell model is incomplete.
I would have included Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish since they more or less defined early screen stardom in Pickford's case and the impact of the close up in Gish's but silent film is sadly ignored nowadays.
joel6 -- well, except any list would always be complete since there are more than 10 greats. it'd be much easier to do definitive lists from each decade (although still no one would be satisfied)
That remake list seems to have been written by someone who never even saw the originals. "No one bothers with the 1951 version [of The Thing] anymore"? Give me a break. King Kong 2005 doesn't hold a candle to the brilliantly entertaining 1933 original. Any list that says an Adam Sandler movie is better than a Gary Cooper movie deserves to be thrown out. You're right to label it insane, Nathaniel.
Musto's list is pretty cool. As Nathan pointed out, a list declaring the 10 Greatest Female Movie Stars defies consensus. That said, I think this list is very good. Bette, Jessica and Audrey are in my Top 10, and Greta and Jane are in my Top 20. And I think the key word in the blog title is "best" female stars of all time, an adjective that I take to mean Musto's favorites. He's got great arguments here.
Jessica Lange on a Top Ten list is always great news.
Turn signal: That Film Doctor piece is hysterical and right on target.
Hmm, I always wonder how an actress' legacy will actually come to be. The issue with many of the huge actresses now is that many of them lack a classic film in their backpocket, one that bears countless rewatches. No one can be as lucky as Faye Dunaway having 3 in her resume after all, but that said, she flies in the face of that logic, as she is never even considered for these kinds of lists. She has three masterpieces in her resume in which she was very good, all of them stand up to frequent rewatching, but she's rarely in the conversation when it comes to this topic. I don't know much about her, but looking at her IMDB page, she has been consistently working all this time. Did she become terrible at one point? Deemed too "desperate" to stay relevant because she wanted to work? Considered a "difficult" woman with "too many opinions"? That she was penalized for aging is a given, but is there another reason why someone who has all the qualifiers for legend status doesn't have it?
F -- that's a really good question to which i don't have the answer. It's weird that one film is considered to have destroyed her career because usually it takes more than one. Especially with that many classics on your filmography.
but yeah,angelina jolie has nothing that will endure on her resume and yet she's so uber famous that you have to wonder if 50 years from now people will view her as one of the great film stars anyway. I mean, i once knew a person in college who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe and i asked which film was her favorite and she said "oh, i haven't seen any of them."
@Nathaniel - I definitely think Angelina Jolie will endure, but it's more to do her with her advocacy, her parenting and her visual, not artistic, legacy. Her face was, is and will forever be iconic. There is no mistaking her for anyone else, and the way she has cultivated that ferocity and sexuality even in repose is something to see. She is such a distinctive presence, and I can't think of any of her peers who can so effortlessly command the camera the way that she can.
What I'm curious to see is how Jolie the Director and Jolie the Mother will play into it. From an outsider perspective, it's like she has studied the best strategies from the greats: Audrey's advocacy and sensitivity, Garbo's studied distance, Marilyn's complicated sexuality, Katharine's independence and Bette's fearlessness, but those women didn't have the options that she has now. It will be fascinating to follow her 10, 20 years from now.
I think the remakes list is fun. I don't know if it needed to be compiled/I agree with all of the choices, but I like its utter disregard for the canon in selecting Chris Rock over Rohmer, Adam Sandler over Capra, etc.
Nathaniel-that story about the Marilyn "fan" makes me sad. Although she is a special case having been poked and prodded and commercialized to an absurd point, you could probably hold up a picture of her in some remote village hardly touched by the outside world and they would still yell out Marilyn Monroe!
F-I think the reason Faye is usually left off the list is because of her lack of periodic resurgency. Bette Davis had a very up and down career, so did Crawford and Judy but every now and again they would have a big hit that put them back in the running. When was the last time that happened for Faye, Barfly? That was over 25 years ago. Maybe Master Class will turn it around for her but for now her legacy has been eroded by too much negligible output.
I respect Angelina Jolie tremendously but without those rewatchable classics once she stops making films her enduring stardom will be finished. Sonja Henie, Norma Shearer and Alice Faye were all top box office stars of their day but none of their films are frequently revived, except for The Women in Shearer's case and that's attributable to the large cast of stars more than Norma, and they are more or less forgotten except by classic film fans. She'll be remembered for her tireless humanitarian efforts as Audrey Hepburn is but probably not as a great star of the screen.
The Stepford Wives remake has gotten a lot of sh*t that year I'm sure, but I myself enjoyed the movie a great deal. I loved Nicole, Bette and crazy Glenn in that so SO much!
I don't know the original film and though it might be better, I'd still watch the remake when I want to. *shrug*